Find the perfect Service Provider
The easy way to browse over 15,000 Service Providers

Findnear

Wedding Planning Tips

10 wedding tips you won't get from a bridal magazine

10. Everyone makes a list of things to pack, but Offbeat
Brides should also make a list of things to bring
back.

Have you spent hours creating those programmes/fans? Did
you create your own photo booth? Have you hand-crafted several
ornate decorations that you plan to hang onto for several years?
You'd be amazed at what people leave on site and forget to collect,
simply because they think someone else has arranged to bring these
keepsakes back.

Very often these things aren't noticed until you come back from
honeymoon, in which case the venue may have unwittingly thrown them
out. The best way to circumvent this is to not only give your
bridal party a list of things you must have back from the venue,
but make sure the venue coordinator has a list of this as well.
That way, if anything gets lost in the shuffle your venue
coordinator will know to hang onto it for you until you get
back from honeymoon, or can make other arrangements for
delivery.

9. Assign someone you trust to download as many photos
as possible before your guests leave the party.

All of us already know that one of the great thing about
weddings today is that almost everyone brings a digital camera. And
although many of us also hire professional photographers, we still
would like copies of the photos our guests have taken.

The best way to expedite this process is to brief someone who is
a trusted friend to be your photo catcher. Their job is to download
as many memory sticks as possible onto a designated laptop before
your guests leave. If you catch people right then and there you
have a much better chance of getting all the images you'd like and
without the hassle of chasing them down later.

You'll probably also have the best luck getting images if your
photo catcher is NOT in the wedding party. We asked my dad to take
on this role, but as a member of the wedding party he got waylaid
with other duties at the time.

8. You may have already been advised to make sure to
take some time for you and FH during the big day. But try to make
some time just for yourself, too.

One of the things I found during the wedding was that from 7am I
had no time to myself. There was always someone in my room, always
someone who had question, always a well wisher and always someone
ready with a camera. It can become difficult to keep energy levels
up when you're "on show" for twelve or more hours at a stretch. I
found myself wishing for a few minutes every few hours or so just
to be able to go somewhere quiet and collect my thoughts / recharge
my batteries / have a glass of water / check my lipstick or just be
uninterrupted for a few minutes so I could then enjoy the day
more.

7. Which brings me to assigning a poking
coordinator…

Having a trusted family member or friend help create space
around you can be extremely helpful and allow you to enjoy those
hugs…

Yes, you read this right and this is actually the fab suggestion
of fellow Tribesmaid. I'm a very huggy person but really
started to get tired of so many people touching me throughout the
day. At some point in the day photos started to show me
wincing/pulling away from loved ones/turning glassy eyed just
because I had reached sensory overload.

Having a trusted family member or friend help create space
around you can be extremely helpful and allow you to enjoy those
hugs… but to also make sure you don't OD on being stroked before
the end of the day.

6. If you find yourself freaking out a little, do
something more "normal."

Yes, I had my awesome shoes, my awesome dress, my awesome OTHER
dress and every decoration that made me and FH smile under the sun.
It was most certainly Our Party. However, there were times in the
day I felt distant from it all. There were times I still felt
disconnected from everything that was happening. I reached a real
turning point in the evening when I was tired of feeling like
someone other than myself -- comfy clothes and comfy shoes aside. I
put down the bubbles and grabbed a beer instead and found an old
friend who sat for ten minutes and told me about her life for a
while.

I should say that I drink bubbles outside of weddings so
swapping champers for beer wasn't really the issue. But it was such
a relief to not talk about me, the wedding or our hopes for the
future. Having those ten minutes to sit in the back corner, drink a
beer and chatter on about nothing at all really helped me feel more
like myself again. If you have a friend who doesn't feel obligated
to only talk about your wedding, spending a little time with them
could be a welcome break!

This probably sounds like an inane comment, but in actuality I
found myself briefing both our celebrant and my mom in regarding
what our friends and families would need to know.

For example, we really wanted our guests to ask us our vows and
to also pronounce us. Our celebrant totally got where we were going
with this and was happy to lead everyone in these sections. But we
were still worried that our guests would be so surprised to take on
this role that it would be so quiet that we'd only hear a
tumbleweed go by. We went back to our celebrant and asked her to
write a preamble to set everyone's expectations about their role in
the service up front -- and yes, as a result their voices were as
loud as we hoped they would be!

Similarly, I didn't know much about my mom's speech but I did
know she was planning to weave in the Jewish tradition of the
breaking of the glass. It suddenly occurred to me that she would
expect to produce the glass, have Hubby stomp on it and that
everyone would applaud. In actuality, 99% of our guests were Church
of England, and I had to advise her that if she wanted everyone to
applaud and yell out "Mazel Tov" she needed to tell them in
advance. She then amended her speech to include a very short
definition of Mazel Tov and her favourite reason for the tradition
of the breaking of the glass - and everyone applauded and cheered
when it was broken in the first go.

4. Which leads me to: trust your guests.

We absolutely trusted that when people showed up, they would
embrace the journey -- and they did.

There are a lot of comments on the Offbeat Bride
Tribe about how friends and family members wig out when
something tests their boundaries of what they think a wedding
should be. However, we found that our guests were absolutely
fascinated by being part of something different. The framework was
something recognizable (bride, groom, ceremony, rings) but the
details were different enough to keep everyone completely attentive
through the entire event. We absolutely trusted that when people
showed up, they would embrace the journey -- and they did.

3. Provide a detailed hand over to your wedding party
earlier than you think you should.

I know this sounds really corporate, to have a hand over
meeting. But if you have an offbeat wedding, you may need to pass
the reins over to someone else earlier than you think you need
to.

In most of our cases we have someone in our lives we can trust
and who has been part of the planning process with you every step
of the way. In my case, it was my two sisters. However, they were
still sort of on the periphery until the day I sat down with them
(about two weeks before the wedding) and went through a very
detailed, exhaustive document with all my thoughts about how the
day would run.

Bless my sisters for printing these documents out, scribbling
their notes all over them and delivering the most seamless day an
event planner ever could have hoped for. And bless them for also
sharing this with the onsite coordinator… and all the ushers. I
absolutely know that if I hadn't given them enough time to own the
process on their own, it wouldn't have worked as well as it
did.

2. When it's all over, remember to thank your vendors…
publicly.

If you really love your vendor, one of the greatest gifts you
can give them is to… write something that could sway couples to
call that company.

Like most Tribesmaids, I've had a little love-in with
nearly all my vendors. I simple cannot believe that they've taken
some sketchy brief and come back with designs, flowers,
decorations, etc., that completely surpassed my expectations. After
the wedding I wrote each one an incredibly detailed thank you as I
wanted them to be able to use my comments as a testimonial to share
with other brides and grooms.

If you really love your vendor, one of the greatest gifts you
can give them is not just a letter of profuse thanks, but to also
take it upon yourself to find a public site that rates said vendor
and write something that could sway couples to call that company. I
know it's not really in our job descriptions to act as their
marketing departments. But as so many of them went out of their way
for me, I am genuinely moved to want to make a difference to their
business.

1. Have a registry? DON'T write thank you letters in
advance.

You've probably guessed by now that I'm a Type A personality.
And when I read an online suggestion to write thank you letters in
advance as guests start to buy gifts or make donations, I jumped at
the idea. So precise, so organised! And I would be able to express
my thanks without suffering perhaps quite as much letter fatigue as
someone who wrote them all in one go (i.e. after the wedding).

What I found through the planning process is what everyone else
here has found. That it is inevitable we will need colossal amounts
of help before everything is over. And until it's all over you
really can't get your head around who has helped you in ways that
really need to be acknowledged more than the toaster you may
receive.

Right, so that's my top 10 then! Although I'm now an old married
woman, I'm really curious what lessons and advice YOU would give
others - every day is a new learning experience.